What I Learned Today

[brynndragon]

The thing that prevent SARS from becoming a pandemic, from infecting a single-digit fraction of the world's population and killing millions if not hundreds of millions of people, was not advanced medical treatment. It was not any number of incredible doctors or a sophisticated emergency response system.

It was web-crawlers.

Welcome to the future.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/58

Comments

[benndragon.livejournal.com]

OK, the points about skelletal muscle being resistant to metasetses despite having a large portion of the body's blood vessels and neurons developing cancer despite not growing/dividing are well taken. She's pretty damn smart (albeit not the best speaker; that'll come with time, I'm sure). The idea that one part of us has basically out-evolved the rest of us is really interesting too. She is definitely on the track for a Nobel.

[null4096.livejournal.com]

Hard to say what someone's going to do 20 years down the line. I wouldn't be too surprised if she becomes a Manhattan dermatologist. ;)

She has a really good point. Muscle cells don't get mets, whereas brain cells do. I'd like to add the caveat that mature neurons don't go cancerous, the support cells and stem cells do. It's the glial cells that become glioblastoma multiforme, not the neurons. You can get a neuroblastoma, but if I recall correctly that's a tumor of immature neurons which are still dividing. And the brain gets lots of mets; the brain's one of the top sites for mets from all the major tumors. So, why brain but not muscle? Good question...

So, the tumors get there but turn into muscle cells? Possible. I wouldn't think the tumor-turned-muscle-cells would become nice, orderly muscle cells, though; wouldn't you see lumps of disorganized muscle cells in the muscle tissue? Oh well...neat line of research.